Puck, Pain & Promises

CHAPTER 8: Surface Cracks

Eden...

“Mia, I kissed him.”

The words left my mouth the second my roommate walked through the door. I sat on the edge of my bed, still in the same clothes from the tutoring session, staring at my hands like they belonged to someone else.

Mia stopped in the doorway, her bag sliding off her shoulder. “You did what?”

I looked up at her. “I kissed Jax. In the locker room. After the session.”

She closed the door behind her and came to sit on the bed across from me. Her eyes were sharp, the way they always got when she was assessing a situation instead of jumping straight to comfort. That was Mia. She did not do soft sympathy. She did facts first.

“Start from the beginning,” she said. “What happened after you left the library yesterday?”

I told her everything. The way Jax had pulled me into the quiet corner. The negotiation. The contract we typed on his phone. The way his thumb had brushed my cheek when he wiped away a tear. The spark I felt. The way I had leaned in and kissed him first because I did not know where else to put the feeling that had been building inside me since the library.

Mia listened without interrupting. When I finished, she leaned back against the wall.

“So the deal is real now. Tutoring. Fake dating. No feelings.”

“That is what we agreed,” I said. My voice sounded too steady, even to me. I always sounded steady when everything inside was falling apart. It was the one thing I was good at.

Mia studied me for a long moment. “What do you actually get out of this, Eden?”

The question hit me harder than I expected. I had been asking myself the same thing since I walked out of the locker room.

“He said he would protect my image. Help me move on from Riley. Make them look bad. In return, I tutor him so he does not lose his scholarship.”

Mia raised an eyebrow. “And that is all?”

I looked down at my hands again. “I asked him to teach me how to stop caring what they think. That was my condition.”

She was quiet for a while. “You know this is dangerous, right? You just got your heart broken in public. Now you are tying yourself to the hockey captain everyone says is one fight away from losing everything. What happens when the fake part stops feeling fake?”

I did not have an answer for that. I had spent the whole walk back to the dorm listing facts in my head. Facts were safe. Facts did not hurt the way feelings did. Jax was a transaction. A tool for survival. Nothing more. That was what I kept repeating to myself.

My phone buzzed on the desk. I picked it up without thinking. The message was from Riley.

“Eden, I know things got messy today. I never wanted to hurt you like that. Can we talk? I miss the way we used to be. You always understood me better than anyone.”

The message looked reasonable on the surface. It used my name three times, the way he always did when he wanted something. It sounded like the old Riley, the one I had spent years trying to make happy. I put the phone face down on the desk so Mia would not see my face.

I thought about Jax’s voice in the locker room. The way he had said I did not have to perform for him. The complete lack of needing anything from me in return. It was so different from Riley’s messages that it made my chest ache in a new way.

I opened a blank notebook page and started writing. I listed every term we had agreed on. Public dates only when necessary. Tutoring four times a week. No real feelings. This stays fake. I covered every contingency I could think of. Duration. Exit clauses. Academic expectations. Physical parameters.

I read it back when I finished. It was airtight. The kind of document that made me feel safe because it made everything legible.

I photographed the page. I sat with it for a long time, staring at the words. Then I picked up my phone and texted Jax.

*Terms document ready. When is your first free tutoring window?*

His reply came in eleven seconds.

*Tomorrow. 9 PM. Rink locker room.*

I stared at the message. My fingers hovered over the keyboard.

*That is an unusual location for studying.*

His response was immediate.

*You said you would teach me. I learn better in my space.*

A pause. Then another message.

*Fine.*

I set the phone down and looked at the contract again. It covered every possibility I could think of. I read it one more time. Then I thought about the way Jax had looked at me in the library. Not through me. Not past me. Not at the version of me I had built for other people’s comfort. Just at me. Directly. Like he was deciding something.

I added a seventh clause at the bottom in small, careful handwriting. I did not examine why I wrote it. I simply folded the page and put it in the front pocket of my bag, the one I kept for things that mattered enough to keep but hurt too much to look at often.

I wondered, briefly and against my will, if Jax had a pocket like that too.

I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through the quiet fear building in my chest.

The deal was real now. The contract was signed. Tomorrow night I would go back to the locker room and sit across from him again. I did not know if I was ready for what that meant.

But I was already counting the hours until nine o’clock.